The National Day party was quite fun.
There was dancing, singing, crosstalk, and riddles…
There was even a yo-yo performance.
Wen Qianshu was a master at solving riddles, getting every single one right, and successfully won a prize for Shen Ting—a pencil case.
Zhang Zisheng, on the other hand, charged forward bravely in the musical chairs game, and in the final round, she scared the class monitor, Yu Sheng, so much that he didn’t dare to sit down.
“Yeah!” She stretched out her leg and smugly patted the class monitor’s shoulder, smiling so wide that a pair of dimples appeared.
The original novel mentioned that Jiang Mingyue could play the piano, but it wasn’t something that could be easily moved, so like Wen Qianshu, she didn’t sign up for any performances and just sat and watched from below.
But while Wen Qianshu slouched in her seat, Jiang Mingyue watched attentively, her posture perfect.
“Are all high school students these days this amazing?” Wen Qianshu lamented to 2333. “Every single one of them is so talented.”
2333 was busy listening to a skit performed by two boys, laughing foolishly, and made no comment on her “lack of learning and skill.”
After some coaxing from Wen Qianshu, Shen Ting signed up to play a guitar piece. She had just learned over the last summer vacation and had only practiced Lo Ta-yu’s “Childhood.”
Just getting on the stage was enough to be the death of this “tiger at home, mouse outside.” Before she could even play a note, her face was already half-red.
“On the banyan tree by the pond, the cicadas are chirping of summer—”
She actually played very well, but when the people below started singing along, they inevitably sent the tune all the way to the Western Paradise. Not satisfied after the song ended, they even urged her to play another one.
Seeing the other half of her face turn completely red, Fang Wenyuan came to her rescue, “Are you requesting songs? Come up and sing it yourself.”
Midway through, the foreign teacher also paid a visit. He was a tall, chubby Australian man carrying a cloth bag, from which he grabbed a large handful of candy and spread it on the teacher’s desk.
Students immediately gathered around, asking for a photo with a grin.
“Hello, can we take a photo with you?”
The foreign teacher replied, “Of course!”
In Chinese.
And so, everyone began to chat happily in Chinese.
Wen Qianshu didn’t squeeze in for a photo. Compared to the foreign teacher, she was clearly more interested in the candy. So, with one hand in her pocket, she stretched out to grab a fruit drop and watched with a smile as her classmates surrounded the teacher.
Everyone was laughing. There wasn’t really anything funny, but just being in this colorful, noisy classroom was enough to make the corners of one’s mouth turn up.
Wen Qianshu tore open the wrapper with her teeth, holding the bag in her mouth as she turned her head, only to see Jiang Mingyue frowning at her phone. It wasn’t quite a frown, as the slight furrow between her brows was shallow and vanished quickly.
Wen Qianshu sat back down in her seat, raised an eyebrow, and suddenly reached out.
The other girl was completely unprepared, so the hard candy was easily pressed against her lips. Its owner was startled, then parted her lips and accepted it with her tongue.
And so, Wen Qianshu was left with only the candy wrapper in her hand.
It happened quickly, but not lightly, as if she had licked her fingertip through the wrapper.
Jiang Mingyue looked up at Wen Qianshu.
Her thin lips were slightly pursed, devoid of any smile.
Yet there were her pale irises, and the colorful lights.
Like a rainbow flowing into the bottom of her eyes.
A moonlit night and irises【Note 1】.
Wen Qianshu unconsciously licked her lips.
She took a step back, leaning against the desk. “What’s wrong, my good deskmate?”
Jiang Mingyue: “Nothing.”
Wen Qianshu smiled. “How’s the candy? Good, right?”
Jiang Mingyue was silent for a moment before replying, “It’s good.”
She seemed a bit distracted, but she politely said, “Thank you.”
Wen Qianshu waved her hand with a smile. “No need, no need.”
Then she asked 2333, “Does the book say what Little Moonlight is worried about?”
2333: “Her life has been smooth sailing. At most, she’d worry about the relationship between the male and female protagonists.”
“But Shen Ting and Fang Wenyuan are still—”
“It’s probably not about them,” Wen Qianshu interrupted it, her hands hanging down, fingertips tapping against the chair.
2333: “I can help you get the information from her phone—since you’re a novice, you get one free assist.”
“I’ll grant you the permission. From now on, you just have to say ‘requesting assistance,’ and the main system will automatically read the world’s information.”
Wen Qianshu nodded and said, “Okay, requesting assistance, I want to see—huh? What was Little Moonlight’s real name again?”
2333: “…”
The main system truly lived up to its name. Before 2333 could even say a word, the answer had already been sent back.
“Jiang Mingyue”
2333: “浣犳槸鍌诲瓙鍚楋紵”【Note 2】
Wen Qianshu: “Be good, no cursing now.”
Wen Qianshu was very apologetic.
2333 was so angry it started spewing mojibake.
Figuring it couldn’t be anything good, Wen Qianshu didn’t bother translating it. She just let 2333 spin in gibberish while she calmly went to take the monthly exam.
The monthly exams at No. 1 High School were very distinctive, reflected in the number and difficulty of questions that were completely unsuitable for selection purposes. Those who didn’t know the material couldn’t write anything, and those who did know didn’t have enough time to finish. The rankings were a dismal sight, with red marks scattered across the three main subjects.
Wen Qianshu ranked first thanks to her math and English scores, but once the Chinese results came out, she dropped out of the top ten. Her scores in the minor subjects varied, but they were all graded on a letter scale and had no effect on her ranking.
Wen Qianshu was heartbroken. “What happened to ‘he who masters math masters the world’?”
2333: “…”
2333: “Both Chinese and Math have a full score of 160. Shen Ting’s Chinese score is 40 points higher than yours. What do you think?”
Wen Qianshu: “But the class average is only 93. It was already very difficult for me to get an 87.”
Very few in the grade scored above 120 in Chinese, and the rare few who did all had outstanding essays, which were printed and circulated for everyone to read. But there was no need to be envious, as everyone had a chance to be printed.
For example, a huge red board suddenly appeared in the stairwell, displaying the rankings and scores of the top one hundred students. The classroom was not to be outdone; the back blackboard clearly listed each person’s scores, as well as their class and school rankings.
Zhang Zisheng: “That scared me to death! I woke up today, rushed to school, and at first glance of that thing, I almost thought I was in my senior year.”
Wen Qianshu: “In your dreams.”
“You can’t escape the monthly exams for the next two years.”
Zhang Zisheng: “???”
“Lao Wen, you stop right there! No potato chips for you today!”
Calculating average scores, error rates for each question, score differences, and rankings.
Going over wrong answers, essays, and listening comprehension.
Punishments included copying vocabulary, texts, classical poems, and classical Chinese essays.
The science teachers had a sudden realization and quickly followed suit—formulas and chemical equations were added to the list, equally punishable.
Unfortunately, the formulas were short and too easy to write, so victory had to be achieved through quantity.
Thus, mental anguish was soon replaced by physical pain, as accidentally getting everything wrong could mean a sore hand until the early hours of the morning.
“The first monthly exam is over.”
During the class meeting, Teacher Gu stood on the podium, her expression solemn. “Some of you must have done poorly, and some of you must feel you did okay.”
“Those who did poorly, don’t be discouraged. Those who did well, don’t get cocky. No matter what, you’ve only just started high school. We still don’t know what scores you’ll get in the future or what schools you’ll go to. So you must settle down for me, sit your butts down firmly, and don’t be all flashy all day, getting into trouble—”
After a round of criticism, the class fell silent as cicadas in winter.
Teacher Gu was very satisfied and couldn’t resist using the remaining half hour to go over math problems.
Unfortunately, the moment she left after class, the sports committee member roared from the back.
“The school sports meet and basketball tournament are tentatively scheduled for two weeks from now. Anyone want to sign up?”
“Count me in for the basketball tournament!”
“Me!”
“Me too!”
The teacher’s wishes were noble, but the students still had to keep on jumping.
Author’s Notes:
Note 1: Iris, in Greek, means rainbow.
Note 2: The mojibake sent by 2333 is caused by converting UTF-8 to GB2312 encoding. If restored to UTF-8, it becomes readable text. I originally put this in as a dark joke from when I was going crazy doing homework, I didn’t expect so many people to be interested orz, so I restored it.
What 2333 said to Wen Qianshu was “Are you an idiot?”. I will post the conversion process on Weibo.
OOC Mini-theater:
The old 2333: Are you an idiot?
The later 2333: I’m sorry, I’m the idiot.
